"You seem deep in thoughts. What's bothering you?" Damisan slowed down to match Mana's pace. He must've noticed that ever since the Stars set their foot in the Fire Country the magician has been completely spaced out. "Missing home?"
"I won't lie, after I've realized that my stay in Getsugakure was being cut short, for a moment, I considered returning to Konoha," Mana admitted.
"What made you reconsider?" Damisan wondered, setting a pace somewhere in between that of the rest of the Stars and Mana so that the lagging pair didn't lose their teammates. The balanced pacing between the two small groups made Mana slightly pick up hers and somewhat keep it up with the rest of the group.
"Deliberating multiple times about the reasons I left in the first place," Mana closed her eyes. Just admitting it right now made her unable to help herself. She flashed back to it all. Jigoku, her return and seeing the world changed in just a mere six months that she's been away. All the attempts at her life, people she knew and loved who used to know and love her acting like they either didn't know Mana or knew her and hated her. It was tough admitting to oneself which was worse.
"Sorry, Mana, we don't have time to drop by Konoha for a casual visit," Shige-H turned her eyes back to the magician for a quick glance. "I know it's tough, but… You were the one promising the Supreme Leader the most intense mission schedule she's ever seen."
"Yeah…" Mana said, gulping her sorrow down and looking on to the road ahead. She knew these paths and these roads. Even if she's traveled them on the ground level, she's covered them alongside Meiko, Shimo, and Kouta when they traveled to the Wind Country in search of the Box of Ultimate Bliss. They were headed in the same direction, so it only made sense they'd tread the same roads. Because wilderness and thick leafage had surrounded those roads, where one couldn't have expected a mercenary or bandit attack at any time, renovating these roads was more trouble than it was worth.
"So, a martial arts tournament…" Endo spoke up. "An event centered on unchained combat to find out the true No. 1 competitor in the world sounds just like my kind of thing, but… I won't be able to use a sword, will I?"
"Not necessarily," Damisan shook his head. "It's true that before the Sun Disc arena was purely about hand-to-hand martial arts. Even manifesting chakra or using it to augment oneself was forbidden. Something's changed not too long ago, however. The Sheikh now not only allows but encourages men and women of different paths and fighting styles in life to clash in the arena. Martial artists, ninja, samurai, pirates, mercenaries, and bandits… All castes and all layers of violent warriors are permitted, though the rules of each even differ. It's tough to say for certain what the Sheikh will decide his rules for the event to be but it won't be strictly about technical martial arts."
"I'm glad one of us is excited," Asuka cracked a smirk with the corner of her lips. "I'll be sitting this one out."
"Like hell you will!" Endo shook his fist at the blonde. "We don't tolerate freeloaders here on Stars! You'll have to fight like your life depends on it if you want to stick around or we'll kick you out and replace you with the first chance we get!"
"I wasn't aware replacement was an option. I'd have replaced Endo long ago…" Mana joked as the first thing after rejoining the group with a quick dash to put her parallel between them. A loud cascade of laughter washed over from all sides. Even Endo, who bit his lip and looked to be restraining himself from lashing back at Mana, cracked a grin in the end after the first instinct to attack her settled down.
"I must not have tried to kill or maim you enough times for you to like me yet," surprising everyone, Endo used his wit rather than his blade. "Give it time."
"Mana, I've been meaning to thank you for…" Shige-H spoke up before the magician raised her forearm bent upward as a signal to stop. The Stars all stopped and scattered like an exploding firework spewing sparks in all directions. Covering the most space possible, each member of the Stars began scouting the area for what may have triggered Mana's warning.
It was a chakra signature. Not too massive, but just large enough. Worst of all–familiar to Mana. It wasn't the only familiar chakra signature either. What an accursed coincidence that Mana would bump into that fearsome man that left her within an inch of her life a few times and ultimately cost her the magician's first relationship with the first young man she's ever fallen in love with. The worst part of all was that even a Konohagakure Sannin wasn't acting alone this time.
Mana could pick up at least three familiar chakra signatures. Aozora Yushijin, Budoki Erumo and Juugo Kusagoro. Usually, Mana would've gotten herself worked up over the fact that she couldn't pick up Kouta's chakra since odds showed that the core of Team Fir had been present. Thing was that she could also pick up a pair of weaker chakra signatures, all around B-Rank level of chakra capacity. The only conclusion Mana could've drawn was that Kouta wasn't selected for this mission. That was fortunate, it was rare that luck smiled upon Mana but she blinked slowly, feeling graced by fortune that she wouldn't have to fight him right now.
Without someone like Kiyomi to coordinate them, it would've been tough to act all together, but Mana sensed Shige-H moving forward. Her plan was to slip through the ambush without forcing a collision with an actual Konohagakure Sannin. Sannin were pretty much public figures, ninja from all countries knew most of the Sannin from any country, with rare exceptions. It would make sense that Shige-H would choose not to risk the integrity of their mission in a gamble like facing off against a team of five, including an actual Sannin.
The problem, in this case, wasn't Kusagoro. It was Erumo. She was a kunoichi that followed in Mana's father's footsteps, picking up the trapper fighting style. It was more than likely that this entire location had been covered with sealing and explosive tags; the ground had been littered with trap holes and some of these passages might have been mirror barriers. This entire area was to be treated like a compromised danger zone. Had Mana not been able to track Erumo's chakra through chakra sensory, she'd have been truly sweating since Erumo's camouflage and sneaking skills were first-rate as well. Kusagoro may have been the nuke here, but nukes had no use unless an open war was declared and a dagger like Erumo could've trimmed the fat out of the enemy carcass without the need for an open war.
Mana repeated the "Stop" signal. She expected someone from somewhere to pick it up. Mana may not have been the team leader, but she was the one with the ability to track chakra, which meant that more times than one she would be the focus for relaying information on a battlefield. All allied eyes would've been on her and only half the time on Shige-H. Right now, her teammates noticed Mana's signal and stopped their misinformed attempt to sneak through the ambush. Had Erumo not been here, Mana would've joined them in trying to sneak through, but Erumo's skillset made this strategy possess a massive chance of failure.
And so the waiting game began. There could've been no confirmed reason a Konohagakure team would stalk someone on a road leading through Amegakure straight to Wind Country, other than trying to stop someone headed to Wind Country. For a team containing a Sannin to be placed here, they must have known for certain that someone they were looking for was headed this way. Moreover, Kusagoro was a Konohagakure Sannin, meaning that the Hokage didn't always have a say in what missions he took part in. It was up to the Sannin to choose the assignments they wanted to be a part of as they were honorary, highly respected, and elite shinobi of their village.
Mana had a nasty feeling that the moment someone would've mentioned a tournament in Sun Disc, Kusagoro would've returned from any part of the world to sign himself up for this mission. This was no coincidence–their missions were related to one another. This team was the Konohagakure official team sent to Wind Country to win it and to score Agbarah in the name of Konohagakure and the Fire Country. They'd probably use the excuse that they were merely trying to prevent other, more malicious parties like Fennec's group or the Chaos Factor from claiming it, to save face in front of the foreign partners, but Mana knew the greed of her country better than that. They wanted that land and its wealth. It was even worth it to them to deal with an enclave and all the resulting logistical nightmares to claim the Sheikhate for themselves.
This was what this was all about. A man who could've been her father-in-law if things turned differently and her childhood friends were out to cripple or kill Mana to secure their village's claim on some land. And to think that Mana was feeling nostalgic just a few minutes earlier…
"Enough of this stupid shit! If you won't step out, I'll smoke you out!" Kusagoro bellowed out loud, breaking any illusions of stealth such a man may have clouded himself with as he dashed forward and malformed his right hand to dozen times the size as vents of wooden-like texture splintered off of various sides of his arm, forming a downward rocket-jet that blasted the man toward the ground. "Chakra Pile Driver!"
Shiny golden fractures littered the forest ground, sending rampant quakes across the forest floor and forcing the trees to pop out with their roots as the resonating shock wave splintered and blew them apart into showers of splinters, while the ground became littered with fissures. Mana took off the tree she found solace in and engaged the Mystical Wings Jutsu to keep herself afloat and away from the terrifying earthquake that threatened to level the entire forest area. By the time the trees all fell apart and the ground stopped shifting, the whole area had been deforested and the ground ruined into a grey wasteland. Open sinkholes and fissures hundreds of meters wide scarred the area.
"Kusagoro-san! You've leveled all my traps!" Erumo complained after landing at a more remote and safer corner of the location and pressing her hands to her hips. "If you just waited, the Allied Ninja would have undoubtedly fallen for one of them and we could have picked them off one by one."
"No, they wouldn't have. Look," Yushijin pulled out his claymore and pointed its tip at the sky where Mana had been levitating. With the entire forest being leveled to the ground and ruined, there was nowhere that anyone could've hidden now unless they had the foresight and skill necessary to both avoid the earthquake and the collapsing ground and then cling to the layer of fallen trees and the leafage to conceal themselves as Damisan had done.
"That's Nakotsumi Mana, Konoha's Sorceress!" a young man unfamiliar to Mana gasped. He was a slender, yet taller than average, youth. Formally dressed and appearing like he'd come from the upper layer of society back home with neatly combed shoulder-length ash-colored hair. He had a Konohagakure headband tied around his right arm, which relayed his allegiances well enough.
"That's right, she's a sensor," Yushijin said bluntly, lowering his sword while the five Konohagakure ninja lined themselves up alongside one another in preparation to stop the advancing Allied Ninja. A sharp, wooden thud came from down below before a mountain of obsidian spikes burst from underground, skewering a handful of fallen centenarian oaks. Endo punched out through the hole with a shoulder ram and landed atop of the trees he had just slashed his way through.
"You guys… Didn't you ask us for help in the first place? Why the fuck would you then attack us and try to take us out?" Endo snarled, swiping both his reforged Earth-Release sword he picked up from the ancient throne room near Boulder Town and the repaired Sword of the Thunder God in a cross-shape warning swipe.
"Konohagakure didn't give us this intelligence, Endo," it immediately occurred to Mana. She just couldn't help herself not to share this thought with the others, since she was already exposed. "You should try to remember who it was that relayed this information to us and whom they're aligned to. Konohagakure administration and that organization aren't always one and the same and they don't always have the same information available to them."
"Hmph… So, someone possibly affiliated to Konoha leaked intelligence about our mission objective to you…" Yushijin instantly picked what he considered his raisins out of the handful of words being thrown about. This was exactly why Mana was careful not to mention the shadowy organization within Konohagakure or Skaven because that'd immediately catch the ear of those five.
"Interesting," Kusagoro fixed his forearm gauntlet back into place while showing his teeth in an excited smirk. "It's unfortunate that I end up having to beat the snot out of you again, girly. Makes me glad Kouta stayed behind and assist at the hospital instead of joining his father in this tournament. I'll give you one chance to stand down and come with us. Jishi and Kochi here will escort you back to Konoha, where you can tell the Hokage all about who the traitor is. If you keep pretending like you don't know what's good for you again, I'm afraid I'll have to hurt you pretty bad to keep you out of my way. Unfortunately for you, I know exactly how persistent and tough to put down you can be, so I'll be extra hard on you."
"I know you better than to think you're just following your orders, Kusagoro-san. In reality, you truly are here because you want to be and you're enjoying every bit of this because that's just the kind of person you are. I, however, have an objective I must complete," Mana shook her head. "This tournament has important ramifications to a young man that's very important to me. That's why I will do everything I can to make sure Fennec and his men don't win that tournament."
"Aww… Hearing that you replaced my boy will break the poor lad's heart," Kusagoro snickered before pounding his open hand and taking an adapted more aggressive Konoha Strong Fist style fighting pose.
"Stars!" Shige-H yelled out to the members that revealed themselves already as well as those that still laid hidden, waiting for their chance to make an impact and provide their team with the opportunity to either win or slip away from the ambush. "Scope the enemy and their abilities out. We're dodging this fight when we have enough intelligence on their abilities to bolt!"
Their hesitation and tendency to wait for orders cost them the initiative. Wasting no time, Yushijin focused his glare on Shige-H, who was impossible to confuse for anyone but being the leader of the Allied Ninja cell.
"Genjutsu: Last Resort!" Yushijin chanted out, focusing his time-bending illusion on the leader of the Stars while she was busy micromanaging her team. Seeing this as his opening of beheading the serpent, Yushijin launched himself forward but met against the crossed blades of Endo. The surging electricity from the Sword of the Thunder God made Yushijin flinch in place and retreat without having used his opportunity of taking out the Stars' leader.
Erumo slipped her long, moss-colored dress off, revealing a tight black dress and fishnets underneath before swooping it over her like a cloak of invisibility and disappearing from view. Mana weaved a single hand seal, keeping perfect track of her opponent's location. "Lightning Style: Magical Pierce!" she chanted out, forming eight Lightning Release sword-shaped constructs in the air that stabbed down and, judging from the meaty sound of it–hit gold. Erumo groaned out in pain as the lightning swords stabbed through under her biceps and into her thigh. The surging electricity instantly cauterized the wounds, but the damage had been significant and threatened to remove the kunoichi from the battlefield.
"Press on!" an armored Konohagakure ninja with steel plates over his shoulder, his elbows, forearms, and hands, his knees and his boots and a Corinthian-style helmet and hood over his head extended his hands after going through a few hand seals. "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!" he chanted out, releasing a powerful gale that pressed every one of his opponents tighter to the ground. "There're three of them and five of us! They've got no chance!"
Before the young man could lower his hands and begin working on the other hand seals, that'd help him exploit this opening he had created, a deafening blast resonated through the area. The Konohagakure ninja had noticed something was wrong and tried to dash out of the way before it would engulf him, but at that moment he seemed sluggish and awkward, almost as if he had been caught in a network of steel wire. With the blast clearing out, the young man referred to as Jishi rolled out from the blast zone without his helmet and was freed of some of his steel protection.
"Careful!" Kochi, the ash-haired Konohagakure ninja, warned out loud. "They've got more allies hiding somewhere under these trees!"
"We're at a disadvantage," Yushijin declared out of the blue. "Kusagoro-san leveled the forest, creating an opening for the enemy to hide in and removing a layer of the battlefield for us to rise to if we wish to watch out for an attack from below. Retreat!"
"What the fuck did you just say, you twerp!?" Kusagoro turned his seething, blood-red face to the level-headed swordsman, but he had already scooped the injured Erumo into his hands and dashed off into the distance, heading toward the cover of the tree line far away at the edge of where Kusagoro's jutsu couldn't reach for protection. "I'm a goddamn Sannin, I could flatten these nobodies in one hit!"
"Maybe so, Kusagoro-san…" Kochi crossed his arms and closed his eyes with a submissive sigh of defeat. "But we need as many heads as can to sign up for the tournament and Erumo-san has already been injured. I'm our only medical ninja and it's only half of my specialty, so I'm not as skilled as most medical ninja. Retreating is the logical option. The enemy has no incentive to give chase to us, after all, we've got a Sannin in our ranks so they'd be chasing a certain mission failure."
Kochi emphasized it just in case the Stars were nitwits that couldn't have figured it out by themselves. Both Kochi and Jishi turned around and took off after Yushijin. Kusagoro growled and grumbled, clenching his fists before cupping his hands over his mouth.
"You assholes! You're not the bosses of me! I'm a goddamned Sannin and I'm the only one in charge of me!" Kusagoro yelled out.
"Very well, stay behind and fight it out to your heart's extent then, Kusagoro-san," Koshi saluted the older ninja. With a vocal groan, Kusagoro turned tail and followed the brats to safety.